MAMASAPANO LESSONS

Lessons from the Mamasapano hearings cannot but contain emotional underpinnings which are difficult to ignore. In the first place, those who retrieved the bodies of the 44 soldiers could have been their own buddies, their roommates at some seminars and workshops or co-guardians of peace in many battles. What came to my mind was it must have been very painful for them to feel the chopped up bodies of their comrades, still warm and soft, like the last time they were together. And, suddenly they were lifeless, no longer able to say hi or hello to them, or even glance at them and nod in acknowledgement of their presence. 

Secondly, it was heart-tugging to know that it had happened to 44 young men, some barely out of their teens and who must have felt that being a protector of the State was the highest achievement they could have, given the very little opportunities for advancement they could have from their original places. 

Thirdly, I am amazed why everyone are still agog about searching for the so-called truth. Who killed them, nobody else but those who pointed the guns at them and who refused to respect the uniforms they were wearing? It is as simple as that. It was not an encounter -- it was simply a revenge for the loss of their mentor, the man who had given them that knowledge to make other people fear them, fear their authority. And what better way to avenge his death but to follow the motto:  an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

But the hearings have been eye-openers as well. They showed the militaristic way of solving terrorism, how plans were developed, who implemented them, how they were botched by circumstances, and how women were sidelined in the whole operations, save as victims of the encounter. 

If there had been a woman who planned the operation from the very start, could the Oplan Exodus have turned out that way?  A woman's viewpoint, gutfeel, maternal feelings -- all these could work into how operations have to be planned and implemented. I am not saying that men have no intuition nor paternal feelings which are similar to maternal in the sense that the leaders would consider their men as their own sons whom they should protect and prevent from dying. But having a woman planner could bring in a different perspective which most of the time, men would neglect, I suppose. That is because, knowing how to give birth to a human being, ordinarily a woman would have that immediate protective feeling and possibly, intuition that not everything would be well that early morning, after the troops were delayed by two hours in reaching the target place. 

More than all the analyses attendant to the operations, the real score here is whether we should still applaud the approval of a Bangsa Moro Law or BML given the loose control that a leader would have over the community. 

I think that the BML has grand beginnings, but the nicks are showing now. The Mamasapano incident has shown us the rage of a people who have felt oppressed from many centuries. A piece of paper will not erase that overnight. Generation after generation has bred that mindset that those outside of their communities are not to be trusted totally and that they are the only true ones who can discern what is happening, what should happen to them. Against that regionalistic or racial feeling, it is triply important to think how best to integrate them into the Philippine fabric without loss of lives. 

Evidently, democracy can still be imparted to them. The hearings showed how democracy works -- everyone is given a chance to speak and ask questions within a time frame; questions are not edited nor stopped from being aired; man and woman senators were given equal time to speak out; and respect for the chair was evident all throughout, though she is a woman. In other words, the hearings showed to the people, especially the group that we are trying to reach out to, that this is the way we carry out democratic procedures specially ewhere a criminal problem is involved. 

However, we should not stop there. I do think and feel very strongly that Ms. Etta Rosales, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chair, the DSWD and the Department of Education, as well as the DILG have to work hand in hand now to develop a curriculum on human rights to be shared with the children, the youth, the adults, the senior citizens, the students, the market vendors, the businesspeople, and the barangay officials of Mamasapano and all other beleaguered communities by terroristic gangs. When people are aware, then gangsterism will have a difficult time to take root in those places where there is a high democratic sense. 

Actually, the academe has many methods of inculcating democratic ideas among various groups of people. It is only a matter of logistics and commitment on the part of our officials. We need to go institutional here because we cannot really rely on media, especially TV to inculcate among our people -- how to respect each other's ideas and much more so personhood. Just listen to opinion programs over the air for a few minutes and then suddenly, it would be interrupted by an advertisement about drinking liquor at 7 in the morning. Liquor drinking among the Muslims is controlled I gathered. Or again, a very important rendering of the news would be broken by another advert, emphasizing how important it is to have white underarms. So one has to use a certain type of deodorant. Or just look at internet shops that have violent games being allowed to the youth to play day in and night out. What is the point we ask, to have such games on screen for the youth to absorb, secretly even, after a school day? 

Do you see Folks how we sabotage the idea of a democratic state to people who have very conservative upbringing and yet some of their views could be very rational? Why drink liquot at 7 a.m. when one should be readying oneself to go to work?  Why use that deodorant when around us are natural stones like the tawas, very cheaply could suppress bad odor? 

We could say now that our type of a democratic state is too permissive to allow the people to do as they please, and for those who have the resources to control what people will see, what people will buy. 

The Mamasapano incident is a huge wake-up call for us to check where we are going democracy-wise. It should make us reflect on what we are doing to carve a society that should be humane, compassionate and nurturing before. Then we should also develop our strong defenses, intellectually, in order to reach out to the groups that are clamoring for their own freedom and control over their own lives. 

Allowing them freedom does not mean their holding their own weapons. Rather they should be given freedom to learn, to be educated on how it is to be a part of a humane society. 

Best of all, control over their own lives also means respecting the rights of women to exist side by side with the men, to fulfill their own dreams for a better life.